CollegeHumor.com
CollegeHumor is a comedy website owned by InterActiveCorp and based in New York City. The site features daily original comedy videos and articles created by its in-house writing and production team, in addition to user-submitted videos, pictures, articles and links. In early 2009, CollegeHumor's editorial staff wrote and starred in their own TV show, The CollegeHumor Show, on MTV. CollegeHumor is operated by Connected Ventures, a New York company that also owns Defunker, BustedTees, Sports Pickle, and Vimeo (also owned by IAC). History The site was created in 1999 by Josh Abramson and Ricky Van Veen. Abramson and Van Veen were high school friends from Baltimore, Maryland. Site traffic averages over 7 million monthly unique visitors, according to Quantcast direct measurement. According to Fox News, "wanted to start an advertisement-based business," Abramson said, "because at the time the advertising market was pretty hot and we’d seen other people develop Web sites that were popular making a lot of money." Their aim was to create a humor site that would appeal to the advertiser-friendly college-aged demographic. CollegeHumor, along with its parent company, Connected Ventures, was acquired by Barry Diller's InterActiveCorp in August 2006. In recent years, CollegeHumor has become known for its original comedy content. The site has been nominated for the Webby Award in the humor category, and many of their individual videos have been nominated for and/or won Webby Awards. Recent winners include "Pixar Intro Parody" for Best Animation, "Web Site Story" for Best Individual Short or Episode, and "Jake and Amir" for Best Series. Their shorts "Awkward Rap" and "Hand Vagina" were nominated for the Webby Award for Best Comedy: Individual Short or Episode in 2008 and 2009, respectively. Features Videos CollegeHumor produces original comedy videos under the CH Originals (formerly known as CHTV) banner. In addition, the site hosts a large collection of user-submitted viral videos, encompassing home movies, bizarre sports highlights, sketches, and the like. Pictures CollegeHumor's Pictures section features user-submitted photographs. Like the site's videos, CollegeHumor's pictures are of a humorous or bizarre nature. CollegeHumor also occasionally holds photo-based contests for its users. CollegeHumor also provides a hottest/cutest college girl contest almost every day throughout the year. Articles CollegeHumor posts original writing from its staff and users, including humorous essays, comics, interviews and weekly columns on sports, video games, college life and dating. Contributing writers to the site have included notable comedians Christian Finnegan, David Wain, Paul Scheer and Judah Friedlander. CH Originals CH Originals is CollegeHumor's original comedy video section, featuring sketches and short films written and produced by the CollegeHumor staff. The site releases over ten new videos per week. CH Originals videos include sketch comedy, film and television parodies, animation, and music videos. In addition to stand-alone viral comedy shorts or "one-offs", which are usually shot on location and feature hired actors, CH Originals also produces a number of series—notably "Hardly Working", "Jake and Amir", and "Bleep Bloop"—which are shot in the CH office and star the CH staff members themselves. CollegeHumor's original videos average 20 million views per month on the site. In addition, their videos are collected on the CollegeHumor YouTube Channel, which currently has over 1,100,000 subscribers. List of Series CH Sketches, Animations, and Music :One-off comedy sketches, cartoons and music videos written and produced by the in-house staff. Dan Gurewitch and Amir Blumenfeld head the writing efforts of these sketches, which are designed to be more "viral" in nature than the site's other comedy content. Hardly Working :Sketches written by and starring the CH editorial staff, filmed in their NYC office. Jake and Amir :A series of short sketches about two CH writers, Jake Hurwitz and Amir Blumenfeld. Streeter Theeter :A showcase for characters created by CH editor Streeter Seidell, previously under the banner of "Hardly Working": "The Overgrown Guy Girlfriend", "The Phantom of the Office", "Time Traveler", "Gunter Granz" and "Best Buy Manager with a Sinus Infection." Bleep Bloop :A video-game-based talk show hosted by Jeff Rubin and Patrick Cassels, featuring various guests. Josh's Mindhouse :Characters and absurdist situations created by Josh Ruben, a director of many CH Originals. POV :Sketches shot from the point-of-view of the main character, often voiced by Vincent Peone, CollegeHumor's cinematographer. These sketches are known for being relatable and are among CH's most popular videos. Prank War :A series that documents the escalating pranks that are played between CH staffers Streeter Seidell and Amir Blumenfeld. Prank War gained national notoriety after one of the two employees staged a public marriage proposal to the other's girlfriend on his behalf. The incident was known as “The Yankee Prankee" and was later featured on VH1's "40 Greatest Pranks Part 2". Seidell and Blumenfeld have appeared twice on Jimmy Kimmel Live to discuss their pranks. CH Live :Excerpts from stand-up comedy performances from CH's monthly live show at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York City. The All-Nighter :An annual event started in 2007 in which the CH staff shoots and posts 12 videos in one night between 9 pm and 9 am. While doing so, they communicate with fans via Twitter and UStream. Past Series :Previously, CH Originals produced The Michael Showalter Showalter, a Charlie Rose-style comedic interview series hosted by Michael Showalter and featuring guests such as Paul Rudd, Andy Samberg, David Cross and Michael Cera. They also gained notoriety for "Street Fighter: The Later Years", which was nominated for "Best Series" by YouTube's Video Awards. The CollegeHumor Show On December 17, 2008, CollegeHumor.com announced The CollegeHumor Show, a scripted comedy that premiered on MTV on February 8, 2009.Promo Video Containing date The half-hour comedy was written by and starred nine actual CollegeHumor.com editorial staff members (Ricky Van Veen, Jake Hurwitz, Amir Blumenfeld, Dan Gurewitch, Patrick Cassels, Sarah Schneider, Streeter Seidell, Sam Reich and Jeff Rubin), who played fictionalized versions of themselves. Books * * References External links *CollegeHumor *CollegeHumor at YouTube *CHTV: CollegeHumor Original Videos at MySpace *A CollegeHumor parody of Wikipedia *Jake and Amir